The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.
Software applications that display interactive digital maps on touchscreen devices can receive single- and multi-finger gestures as input. For example, a user can move the viewport in which a digital map is being displayed by “dragging” the map, or zoom in and out by moving two fingers farther apart or closer together, respectively. Some user gestures, such as “fling,” communicate motion to the viewport in a certain direction and with a certain acceleration. When such gestures are detected, these software applications may “animate” the digital map to create the sense of the viewport following a certain trajectory to the target position. The viewport in some cases follows the trajectory quickly, covering large portions of the digital map over a very brief period of time.